“Fierce!” Aunt Diane snapped her fingers, a gesture she’d learned from me.
“So nice, baby!” my mother said. “You’ve always been such a beautiful girl. I’m so proud of you.”
As I left, I looked over my shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t follow me. No, I was safe. She and my aunt were continuing their debate. I picked up the overnight bag I’d placed at the foot of the stairs.
At Zulu’s Fufu, I picked up my free breakfast from a waitress who gave me sad looks. I hoped she wouldn’t say something about Lydia. To distract her, I asked for more grits. Oh, and more turkey sausage, too.
The door to the café jingled, and Mr. Harris came through.
“Hey, Ailey!”
“Hey there, Mr. Harris.”
“How your mama doing?”
“She’s good.”
“So when do you think you might give me the apartment keys?”
“Soon, Mr. Harris. Real soon. I just want to make sure the place is completely clean.”
“I have a crew, Ailey. They can get all that.”
I stepped to the door, calling, I would let him know. I’d call him, and it was so good to see him.
In the living room of Lydia’s apartment, I pulled some clothes from the overnight bag. I changed my clothes and lay down on the couch, then remembered that I needed to hang up my work dress. I couldn’t get it wrinkled. That would require an explanation, when I was supposed to be volunteering at the clinic two times a week. I put in my earphones and turned on my Walkman. I had three hours before my mother expected me to return home. As I lay there Lydia’s voice came to me again.
Lying to your mama is wrong, baby, Lydia said. You weren’t raised that way.
“I’m going to start back volunteering soon,” I said. “So then it won’t be a lie.”
If you say so. Whatever gets you over.
“Leave me alone, please, Lydia.”
I didn’t talk out loud to her, only in my head. But I did turn up the music.
*
On the days that I didn’t leave the house, I helped Mama with the housework, dusting the banister and using the special oil soap to mop the hardwood floors. I asked for the grocery list and drove to the farmers’ market. There was a stall run by a young white guy with a waist-length ponytail. My mother told me he sold the freshest greens in town.
I thought my ruse was slick. I’d certainly fooled my mother, who smiled brightly the mornings I met her in the kitchen dressed for the clinic. She didn’t approach me with accusations, to tell me her dreams had informed her that I was a lying, pitiful excuse for a daughter. But at a rare Sunday dinner at Mama’s house, Coco cornered me in the kitchen, walking soundlessly behind me.
“Listen, how’s everything going? I’m concerned about you.”
I scraped my plate into the trash can. “No need for that. I’m fabulous.”
“Ailey, no, you’re lying to Mama.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I know you’re not volunteering. The director of the clinic called me looking for you.”
I ran a soapy cloth over a plate. “I just haven’t seen him. I guess he doesn’t come in on the same days I do.”
She pushed my arm roughly. “Do I have ‘Boo-Boo the Fool’ stamped on me?”
“I know you better stop putting your hands on me, unless you want a fight. I’m not scared of you.”
In the dining room, our mother was telling a story about her brother Roscoe. How one morning their father had tried to make him get up early to work the fields, and Roscoe told him he didn’t want to smell the ass end of no mule.
“Okay, Ailey. Okay. I’m sorry.” Coco made our father’s palms-down gesture. The nails on her small fingers were short and very clean. “It’s just . . . it’s been a month since Lydia passed. I’m just worried about you, girl. That’s all.”
“Worry about yourself! Worry about your own conscience. I know what you and Daddy were doing. Paying Lydia’s rent. Keeping her away from us.”
She blinked at me and screwed up her face. For once, I’d thrown her. “Ailey, is that what you really think of me? Daddy and I weren’t keeping Lydia away. We were just giving her some time to get herself together, until she could come back home. And Mr. Harris let her stay in that apartment for free.”
“Daddy told you that?”
“Yeah, he did. Said he’d wanted me to take care of Lydia if he ever got sick again, but she needed to go back into rehab. Get herself together. You can’t enable an addict.”